Robinhood vs. Acorns vs. Stash: Investment Platform Comparison (2024)

Starting to invest in the stock market is often an exciting time. You’re taking a step toward potentially growing your wealth. These days you could choose to invest your money using any one of many options, whether you’re just learning how to invest or you’re already a seasoned investor.

Finding the right trading platform for you depends on your goals and how you want to invest. Each service provides different investing options, fee schedules, and other differences that may make one a smarter fit for you than others.

Three popular options for trading platforms include: Robinhood, Acorns, and Stash. Here’s how these three low-fee investment apps stack up against each other.

In this article

• Robinhood vs. Acorns vs. Stash
• How does Robinhood work?
• How does Acorns work?
• How does Stash work?
• What all three investment platforms excel at
• 7 important differences between Robinhood vs. Acorns vs. Stash
• Which investing app should you choose?
• FAQs
• Bottom line

Robinhood vs. Acorns vs. Stash

Robinhood, Acorns, and Stash all enable you to invest for your future but they have different investing options. Here’s a quick look at how they compare against each other.

Minimum investment None None None to $1, depending on account type Management fees None $1 to $5 per month $1 to $9 per month⁴ Asset classes Stocks, ETFs, options, cryptocurrency ETFs in prebuilt portfolios Stocks and ETFs⁵ Account types available

• Taxable brokerage account

• Taxable brokerage account
• Online checking account
• IRAs: traditional, Roth, and SEP
• Custodial brokerage accounts

• Taxable brokerage account
• Online banking account⁶
• IRAs: traditional and Roth¹
• Custodial brokerage accounts²

Features

• Fractional share investing
• Real-time trading
• Options trading
• Robinhood Gold ($5 per month) provides access to research and margin trading for a fee

• Round-ups
• Fractional share investing
• Automatic investments
• Automatic rebalancing

• Round-ups
• Fractional share investing
• Stock-Back® card⁷
• Automatic investments
• Portfolio analysis and recommendations

Best for... Someone who wants to pick individual investments and trade in real time Someone who wants to invest in a prebuilt diversified portfolio, or invest in an IRA or custodial account Someone who wants to pick their investments and invest in an IRA or custodial account Visit Robinhood Visit Acorns Visit Stash

How does Robinhood work?

Robinhood allows investors to buy and sell stocks, ETFs (exchange-traded funds), options, and cryptocurrency without incurring trade commission fees. At the time Robinhood first started offering this service, commission-free trades were unheard of. Today, many brokerage firms have followed Robinhood’s lead by offering no-commission trades.

The Robinhood app also allows you to buy fractional shares of an investment. This means you could buy a part of a share, which is advantageous when you want to invest in a large company with a high stock price. For instance, you could use $10 to buy 1/10th of a share in a company with a $100 stock price. Without fractional share investing, you’d have to save up the whole $100 to purchase a share.

Robinhood doesn’t offer automated portfolio options, automatic rebalancing, or other robo-advisory services as some other brokerages do. Instead, you pick which investments to buy and sell and when to make the trades.

If you outgrow your Robinhood basic account, you could upgrade to Robinhood Gold and get access to professional research and the ability to trade on margin, which is borrowing money to invest. This costs $5 per month for access to the first $1,000 of margin. Additional margin above $1,000 comes with a 2.5% interest rate.

Read our Robinhood review for more details.